President Aquino’s ambiguous one-liner to refer to the controversial bill on population control in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) the other day earned criticisms rather than approval from the Church which he is trying to appease but it failed to impress the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) which expressed regret over it.
In an official statement posted in the CBCP website, Fr. Melvin Castro said it was clear that the proposed reproductive health (RH) bill or Aquino’s version of it called  responsible parenthood is not about health but about birth control.
“We are ending the backlogs in the education sector, but the potential for shortages remains as our student population continues to increase. Perhaps Responsible Parenthood can help address this,” was the only part in the Sona where Aquino referred to the bill.
Deputy presidential spokesman Abigail Valte said  the President particularly wanted a consolidated House Bill 4244 to be passed by Congress even before the electoral climate steps in.
Valte described HB 4244 as the consolidated version of six other legislative bills on the controversial reproductive health. The consolidated version has a new title too — Act Providing for a Comprehensive Policy on Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health, and Population and Development, and for other purposes.
Aquino’s inclusion of “responsible parenthood” in the Sona was not an endorsement to Congress of the approval of the controversial reproductive health (RH) bill as it was, in effect, a different measure coming from Malacañang.
“It was a safe advice. It was an advice. It was not an endorsement. I’m sure he was playing it safe because he does not want to offend both sides, all sides. He played it the way it should be. Who can go against responsible parenthood?, No one,” Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said.
“I think it was a very wise move. It was a very wise statement, he was playing it safe,” said the Senate Majority Leader, pointing out that the matter of “responsible parenthood,” when it was presented to them during a Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) meeting in the past, was a bill different from RH.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile practically seconded Sotto’s assertion saying that Aquino’s statement was interpreted as “his desire to the extent that we can accommodate it, we will accommodate it but if not, we will say, ‘we beg your pardon’.”
“That is his wish list. I have dealt with many presidents. They have their own wish list. They are operating within a democratic setting. They know that everything is a subject to be debated,” said Enrile in an interview with reporters.
“The President knows that all legislation is open to debate. He knows that since he came from both the House and the Senate,” Enrile said.
The two Senate leaders do not even consider it as a pressure, coming from Malacañang, to have the RH bill which remains pending in both chambers, approved in the present 15th Congress.
“We are deeply saddened and disappointed about it,” said Castro, executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission on Family and Life of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
In his third State of the Nation Address, Aquino laid out his administration’s programs in addressing the problems besetting the education system such as the shortage of textbooks and lack of classrooms.
The President has repeatedly said that his responsible parenthood policy is for a comprehensive health care for women and not a population control.
Castro said Aquino’s latest pronouncement has only affirmed the Church’s concern that the RH bill is nothing but a population control bill “disguised” as a health measure.
“They’ve got so many excuses. In the end, it is about population control,” said Castro was at a Family and Life Conference in Antipolo City when Aquino delivered his third Sona.
Castro also chided Aquino for using population control as the solution to the challenges that the education sector is facing.
“We do not see any connection between the education problem and the RH bill or his responsible parenthood because these are about promoting and funding of contraceptive usage,” he said.
Contrary to reports of Philippine population explosion, he said that data from the National Statistics Office and the Population Commission show that there is a “downtrend” in the population growth rate.
“There’s something wrong with the President’s thinking and his solution to the problem,” added Castro.
The CBCP and even many health experts are strongly against RH bill because of its provisions that promotes the use of contraceptives which they deemed were “abortifacients” or cause abortion. With By Fernan J. Angeles and Angie M. Rosales